


of all that is shifting & shaking my system

by inconocible



Series: swimming in sevens, slow dancing in seconds [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Comfort Sex, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Star Wars Rebels: The Siege of Lothal, Probably canon compliant but no promises, Space parents talking it out, but not PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 19:25:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13130430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconocible/pseuds/inconocible
Summary: She feels emotion radiating from Kanan, and catches, as she occasionally does when his thoughts are intense enough, the idea of the feeling: Our son.“Hey, I love him too,” she whispers, rubbing his back. “But he needs to go sleep in his own bed.”





	of all that is shifting & shaking my system

**Author's Note:**

> oh & i'll be there waiting  
> when you start to get jaded  
> i know things are changing  
> but darling, i'm saying  
> [i've been here all along](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgWC5oEuyjU)

“Can’t sleep?”

Kanan sighs and hands her one of the two steaming mugs of tea in his hands. “I was asleep,” he says, a touch of annoyance bleeding into his voice, “but I woke up.”

“Hm,” Hera says. She takes the tea, turning to look at him. He looks away, not meeting her eyes. He slumps into the copilot’s chair, holding his mug in both hands against his chest. His hair is unbound and loose around his face; he wears his pajama pants and an old t-shirt.

Hers sips her tea. “Is your arm bothering you?” She knows he will have a burn scar there, on his right arm, from that – thing’s – lightsaber. Right now it’s still bandaged, the white gauze just peeking out from the sleeve of his shirt.

A long moment passes, Kanan’s eyes closed. “Love?” Hera asks.

Kanan takes a long drink from his mug, doesn’t open his eyes. “My arm’s fine,” he says.

A few long minutes pass in silence but for the sound of both of them drinking the hot tea. It’s rek, her favorite for long night watches. It’s spicy, sharp, and she remembers how quiet Kanan had been the first time they had shared a cup. She knows now that his master had favored it, and it makes Hera think about the days when she first met Kanan, first started falling in love, first started listening to him open up about his past, piece by piece.

Tonight doesn’t feel like the old days did.

“Talk to me,” Hera murmurs.

Eventually, after another long silence, Kanan drains his mug and sets it on the floor. He scrubs his hands over his face. “Ugh, I’m so kriffing tired,” he groans.

“Then go back to bed?”

“I can’t,” Kanan says.

Hera sets her also now-empty mug on the floor, turns in her chair, taps his knee with her foot before tucking her legs under her. “Why not?”

He covers his face with his hands. She realizes, suddenly, that he’s been in her presence for at least 15 minutes and hasn’t yet looked directly at her.

“For one,” he says, “Ezra is currently asleep in our bed.”

Hera isn’t sure what kind of answer she expected, but that… wasn’t it. “And can I ask why Ezra is asleep in our bed, when he has his own perfectly good one?” she asks.

Kanan flexes his fingers in his hair.

“Kanan.”

“You can ask,” he says flatly.

“Kanan,” she says again, frustration coloring her voice. “Talk to me,” she says, more forcefully than when she said it 10 minutes ago. “Why is Ezra sleeping in our bed, when you went to sleep there not three hours ago?”

He doesn’t move his hands, and his voice is muffled when he finally answers her. “I woke him up,” he says.

“You woke him up?” she repeats, drawing the syllables out, letting them lengthen in her growing frustration. She knows Kanan has been having a rough few weeks, knows that he hasn’t been sleeping well, knows that their confrontation earlier that day with the supposed-Sith deeply rattled him (and Ezra, and Ahsoka), but – honestly.

“Why would you do that?” she starts. “He seemed completely exhausted at dinner tonight. As did you! You both need rest! I don’t understand why you would –“

“I didn’t mean to!” Kanan exclaims, too loud, too harsh.

Hera recoils in her seat.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says again, quieter.

Silence hangs between them. His hands still cover his face, the heels of his hands pressing against his eyes, his fingers digging into his hair.

“Talk to me, my love,” Hera asks again, nearly begging. She gets out of her seat, closes the space between them, crouches at his side and takes his left wrist, gently tugging at his arm. He gives in, letting her move his hand, but his eyes stay closed, his face turned from her. She plants a soft kiss on his palm, on the inside of his wrist, on the bend of his elbow, maneuvering her body under his left arm, into his space. “What’s wrong?” She leans her head against his chest.

“Everything is wrong,” he grits out, his whole body tensing.

“Kanan,” she starts, alarmed, but the breath he sucks in, a harsh sob, cuts her off.

“Everything is wrong,” he says again, and he tries to pull away, his shoulders shaking, but she catches him, wrapping both her arms around his torso. “Hera,” he gasps, still trying to turn away, “please –“

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says. She stands up, stepping between his knees, cupping his jaw in both her hands. “Look at me,” she says.

He takes his other hand off of his face, opens his eyes, but he won’t meet her gaze. Tears glisten in his eyes. One rolls down his cheek. Hera has seen him cry maybe two or three times? In all these years. “What’s wrong?”

He surges forward, pressing his face against her stomach, wrapping his arms around the backs of her legs. “I’m so scared,” he says, muffled into her torso. She holds the back of his head in her hands, smoothing down his loose, untied hair as his tears begin to soak her coveralls, her shirt. “I’m so scared, Hera,” he sobs.

She holds him, feeling him press closer and closer until his knees start to slide forward out of the chair. She goes with him, her knees hitting the metal floor of the _Ghost_ , still holding him, sliding back and back until she’s sitting with her back against the ship’s console and he’s between her legs, curled up like a child, his head pressed against her breasts, sobbing. She lets him cry, waits for it to pass, petting his loose hair and his back while he does.

When he starts to calm, she says, “It’s okay to be scared.”

He sits up, shakes his head. “There is no emotion, there is peace,” he huffs. “There is no passion, there is serenity.”

“And?”

“I’m the worst Jedi in the kriffing galaxy.” He sighs.

Hera sighs too, running her hands over his face, wiping away the last of his tears, tucking his hair behind his ears. “I don’t think that’s true,” she says.

“I’ve been having terrible nightmares these past few weeks,” he says. “Flashbacks, really. Of,” he sniffs, “my master dying, and of Ezra falling when we were fighting the Inquisitor, and, now, apparently, of Ezra being Force-pushed around by the Sith lord we met, and.” He takes her hand. “There’s something wrong with me. I can’t keep my dreams from projecting onto Ezra.”

“I don’t understand,” Hera says.

“He _sees_ my dreams,” Kanan says, “and it upsets him.”

Hera considers this. “Ahsoka mentioned that you two are deeply bonded.”

“We’re more deeply bonded in the Force than I realized, or maybe even than I meant,” Kanan says.

“It has been a year and a half,” Hera says. “It’s been an intense one, too. Of course you’ve gotten close.”

Kanan shakes his head. “The bond between master and padawan is… different. It’s not just close, it’s deep, in the Force. We’ve become – ridiculously attuned to one another. I don’t know how to explain it.” He runs his thumb over her palm. “I love you, but what I have with Ezra… it’s an elemental connection. It’s something I haven’t felt in years, since the Jedi…” He trails off.  

“And he sees your dreams because of your connection?”

Kanan sighs again. “If I were stronger-willed, steadier emotionally, more disciplined, better trained – he shouldn’t. But I’m not. So yeah, sometimes he does.”

Hera sits, ponders this for a moment. She shivers. “How about,” she offers, reaching for levity, “we continue this conversation in bed? Send Ezra back to his own bed,” she says. “The floor’s cold.”

“Yeah,” Kanan says. “You’re right.”

“Hey, Chop, I need you to come take over for the night,” Hera says into her comm.

Kanan stands, offers her his hand, pulls her to her feet and into a tight hug. “I love you, so much,” he whispers into the top of her head. “Even if I – don’t deserve to.”

“Kanan,” Hera whispers, her heart cracking at the defeat in Kanan’s voice. “Don’t say that.”

The door slides open, Chopper grunting indignantly and waving his hands at them. Hera pulls back from Kanan’s embrace with a laugh.

“Yes, Chop, we are, in fact, taking this to our own room, which is why I called you.” Chopper twitters more, harassing them about public displays of affection and about leaving dishes everywhere. “I’ll get them in the morning,” she says, rolling her eyes. He continues on in an annoyed string of thought, now about how Kanan’s messy habits have ruined her forever. “Good _night_ ,” she says, patting Chopper on his head, knowing he doesn’t really mean it, taking Kanan’s hand and leading him down the hall to their room.

True to Kanan’s word, Ezra is curled up asleep in their bed, tucked in securely under the blanket. Kanan pauses in the doorway. Hera pauses with him, wrapping her arms around his back, watching Ezra around Kanan’s shoulder, the low light in the room throwing shadows over the sleeping teenager’s face. She feels emotion radiating from Kanan, and catches, as she occasionally does when his thoughts are intense enough, the idea of the feeling: Our son.

“Hey, I love him too,” she whispers, rubbing his back. “But he needs to go sleep in his own bed.”

Kanan turns slightly, kisses the side of her head, steps out of her embrace, sits on the edge of the bed. He stretches his hand out toward Ezra, closing his eyes, and Hera marvels at the stillness that washes over him. A moment passes, and Kanan stands, lifting Ezra in his arms, cocking his head at Hera, wordlessly asking her to follow.

They almost make it to Ezra and Zeb’s room before Ezra starts to stir in Kanan’s hold, pressing his face against Kanan’s neck. “Shh,” Kanan whispers, no louder than an exhale of reassurance.

Hera keys open the door to the room, and Kanan crosses into it, setting Ezra down carefully on the top bunk, reaching to pull the covers up over him. Kanan tucks him in, and pauses, running his hand over Ezra’s face, bending to kiss his forehead. Hera feels her heart crack again.

They walk silently back to their own room. Kanan strips off his shirt, flings it roughly in the direction of the dresser, and slides into bed; Hera takes off her coveralls and socks, folds them neatly and puts them on the chair at the foot of the bed. She slides under the blanket then, still warm from Ezra’s body heat, and wriggles closer and closer to Kanan until her head is resting on his chest, their legs twined together, his arms around her. She lays her palm on his chest, feeling his heart beat.

Just when Hera thinks they are both about to fall asleep, Kanan speaks. “I love you all so much,” he says. “You, Ezra, Sabine, Zeb.”

“Chopper?” Hera asks, teasing.

“Yeah, even Chopper,” he says.

He slides one hand contemplatively over her lek, under her ear, and it sends a hot shiver down her spine.

“And that’s why I’m so scared,” he concludes. “That’s why I didn’t want to stay with the fleet, get involved in all of this. Being part of another war, another military, it’s going to rip us all apart. I feel it.”

He cups her face in his hands, leans down and kisses her, long, and slow, and deep. She moans, pressing closer to him.

He leans his forehead against hers, brushing the tip of her nose with the tip of his. “I spent so long running from the war. Running from the Jedi. But now, now that I’ve got Ezra, now that there’s literally a Sith lord chasing us like we’re the last Jedi master and padawan left in the galaxy –“ She leans up to interrupt him with a kiss, and he goes with it, hands wandering under the hem of her tank top, stroking the soft skin of her stomach. “Now it’s too late to run,” he says, when they break apart for a breath. “Too late to leave the fleet. We’re in this now. Whether we want to be or not.”

“Kanan.” She presses closer, hooking her leg over his hips, stealing kisses.

“I’m not a good Jedi,” he says between kisses. He turns onto his back, pulls her on top, grabbing at her ass. “I lived outside the Code for too long. I can’t just – detach. I love my family, and I’m scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared,” Hera murmurs, reaching for his pajama pants, tugging on them, rocking slightly, teasing and reassuring him with her weight. “You’re a human being. You don’t have to be a good Jedi. You’re a good man.”

Kanan groans, lifts his hips. She slides off of him, taking his pants with her, baring him completely. He shivers in the coolness of the room. “You don’t get it. Fear leads to anger,” he says. “Anger leads to hate, and hate… leads to suffering, to the dark side.” He turns his head into the side of the pillow, watches Hera taking off her tank top, her underwear. “At least, that’s what the masters used to say. How am I supposed to protect Ezra from that, protect our family from that?”

Hera presses against his side, stretching her bare legs out against his, taking him in her hand. “Make love to me,” she whispers. “Let everything else wait until the morning.”

“I’ve been letting it wait for way too long,” Kanan says, but he acquiesces, turns onto his side, thrusting gently into her hand, reaching for the meeting point of her legs. She’s hot there, and wet, and he slides his fingers into her, over her, sighing contentedly. He props up onto one elbow, setting his teeth to the warm skin behind her ear and in front of her lek, stroking her until she feels the edge of an orgasm gathering, her stomach muscles contracting.

She moans, stroking him harder, running her thumb over the tip, feeling his own slickness gathering.

“Stop teasing,” she whispers, breathy. “Inside me, now.”

He laughs, a soft and warm sound that Hera wants to grab, turn into a tangible thing, use to patch over the cracks in her heart, to cancel out the way he sounded when he said _everything is wrong_. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, his teeth grazing the lobe of her ear as he rises to his knees, pushing her legs over his shoulders, sliding home.

**Author's Note:**

> help, I've fallen and I can't get up.  
> I'm also on [tumblr.](https://inconocible.tumblr.com/)


End file.
